Bulletin Board: Follow Me

Bulletin Board: Fruit of the Spirit

Bulletin Board: Fall in Love with Jesus

Bulletin Board: Parable of the Sower

Bulletin Board: We are Fishers of Men

Paper plates painted for the fish . . . 

Blue netting on top to add dimension . . .

Altar snack

Here's a very simple altar snack that could be used for any lesson involving an altar. I used it when teaching about Abraham and Isaac. You could make this snack using different things. I used prepackaged peanut butter cookies. If you have peanut allergies in your class you would obviously not want to use these. Any square snacks would work! I used three stacked on top of one another and connected each cookies with a little peanut butter to keep them from sliding. For the fire I just colored some canned icing. I made some red and some orange. I put a dab of each color on top of the cookies and placed a few broken pretzel sticks on top for the fire. When doing this with the 2 year olds I put everything together and let them add the logs. Older kids could probably manage doing it all by themselves. 

Making Bricks . . .

My mom was teaching the second grade class on Wednesday nights in the summer and they were studying the life of Moses and the children of Israel in Egypt.   She decided to make bricks for the kids to eat the night they were talking about what kind of work the Israelites did when they were slaves.  She melted chocolate almond bark in a pot and added chow mien noodles to the chocolate.  After stirring very well, she poured them into ice trays, and put them in the refrigerator to harden.  

Right before class, she took them out and VIOLA! edible bricks! The kids loved them!

Days of Creation 4-7 Poems

Some people have asked for the rhymes for the days of creation.  Here they are:

Day 1, Day 1

God made light when there was none.

Day 2, Day 2

God made skies and seas so blue.

Day 3, Day 3

God made flowers, plants, and trees.

Day 4, Day 4

Sun and moon and stars galore.

Day 5, Day 5

God made birds and fish alive.

Sixth Day, Sixth Day

God made animals and man that day.

Day 7, Day 7

God is resting in His heaven.

Hope this helps you all!!!!

Pillar of Cloud/Fire

The night we learned about the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, we briefly talked about how they followed God to where they were suppose to go.  We talked about how God led them by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night.  I made (very quickly) a pillar of cloud by gluing cotton balls to a white sheet of paper and I glued it to a Popsicle stick.  I made a pillar of fire by gluing red and yellow flames to a Popsicle stick.  

Here we are talking about what each meant and what the Israelites would do when they saw the pillars.

Then, I let them take turns being the leader (holding the pillar) and the rest of the class would follow behind the pillar.

Then we would sleep and another pillar would appear and we would follow it.

This wound up being an AMAZING tool for the rest of the week.  We would use it to line up to go to the other rooms we used and we used it to play "follow the leader" to review the lessons.

I would definitely do this again!!! I love it when those last minute ideas become wonderful ones you want to use again and again!

Crossing the Red Sea Snack

This night of VBS had a great snack!! Kim adapted this idea to fit our little dears.  We used Cool Whip and turned it blue with food coloring.  On a paper plate, we placed a graham cracker down to represent the dry land and put the blue food coloring down on each side to represent the water.  On the graham cracker we spread a little bit of icing so our teddy grahams aka the children of Israel could cross on dry land.

The kids LOVED it!!!!!

ACTS Bulletin Board

In my mother's Teaching the Bible to Children class at FHU, she has them develop bulletin boards.  This was one her student made.  I thought it was very creative and original.  

Jonah and the big fish

Here is a super easy craft that I did with my preschool age kids. Cut a simple "big fish" shape out of construction paper. I would have used foam had I had any but I didn't so construction paper worked just fine. Print off a "Jonah" from the internet and stick Jonah on a craft stick. I glued a strip of construction paper to the back of the fish for the craft stick to slide behind but you wouldn't have to do that! Put a wiggle eye on and you're done!





Here is a cute song to use when teaching about Jonah (www.perpetualpreschool.com)
Tune: Are you sleeping?

Where is Jonah? Where is Jonah?
In a boat. In a boat.
What is Jonah doing? What is Jonah Doing?
Running from God. Running from God.

Where is Jonah? Where is Jonah?
In a fish. In a fish.
What is Jonah doing? What is Jonah doing?
Praying to God. Praying to God.

Where is Jonah? Where is Jonah?
On a hill. On a hill.
What is Jonah doing? What is Jonah doing?
Learning to love. Learning to love.

Where is Jonah? Where is Jonah?
Nineveh. Nineveh.
What is Jonah doing? What is Jonah doing?
Sharing God's love. Sharing God's love.

Your Own Giant Fish

My friend, Kim, and I made this GIANT fish when teaching the Kindergarten class about Jonah being swallowed by the great fish.  We made it out of a lot of bulletin board paper and just free handed it (a gift I am NOT blessed with!).  The kids loved being in the fish.  We would pretend that they were Jonah in the fish.  Then when the fish would "spit" them out, they would go to Ninevah and tell them God's news!

Healing of the Lame Man

I don't teach below Kindergarten often, but, when I do, I try to do a lot of activities to keep the kids up and moving!!!!  When I was teaching the three year olds about Paul, these are some of the activities we used for the lesson.  This gate had been made for a VBS lesson.  We try to save as many of these things as possible so we can reuse them year after year.  I found the mat from Oriental Trading - in their beach section!!!  The kids loved that part of it!  We let each child that wanted to be the lame man on the mat.  The rest of the class would sing the song that went with the lesson while the child who was lame became well.  We did this COUNTLESS times!!!

One of the things we did when they came into class was to begin coloring their story telling figures. I took these same figures to teach the lesson later.  They worked on coloring them and we would talk about what we thought the lesson would be about.  It is always fun to hear their thoughts!

This is how I used them in the lesson.  The kids love the sand box.  I usually let them touch the sand after the lesson if they sit still through it.

This was one of my favorite lessons to teach and there are so many lame man stories you can use these ideas with - Jesus, Peter and Paul!!!!

Paper Bag Sheep

We used a white lunch sack to make this cute little sheep for a lesson on David being a shepherd.  It was so easy to make and the kids LOVED them!!!!  Take a lunch sack. Stuff it with anything you have.  We used newspaper.  Fold over the ends and staple.  You may even want to tape the end to the bag.  Attach the head (We used a lamb mask pattern.) to the bag with glue or masking tape.  Cut four legs from white paper and tape to the bottom of the bag.  You can add cotton balls all over the sheep or one for the tail.  We made one for each child.  They were able to take one home at the end of the lesson.  We used them in the drama center.  The kids would collect all the sheep from all over the room and put them in the sheep corral.

You can also use these sheep for the parable of the lost sheep, as well as turning it into any animal you may need.

Pig Food

I love seeing teenagers in the Bible classrooms learning how to teach!  This idea comes from one of our best!  She made this as a take home when teaching about the prodigal son.  This was her pig's food - although I think all the kids liked eating it!!! She put popcorn, fruit loops, cheerios, raisins, etc. in her pig's food!  It is a good way to show the kids how the pigs ate whatever was left over!

Hezekiah's Sun Dial

My mother made these with her second graders when they studied Hezekiah.  It was so simple to do - using only 1 1/4 of a paper plate.  You see that one paper plate is laid flat and the times are drawn like our clocks.  Then, the student used a little bigger than 1/4 of another plate to make the dial.  They folded a flap down (see the first picture) and glued it down to help the dial stand.  How simple but perfect for these kids to see what the Bible was really talking about!  Good idea, Mom!!!

Tongues of Fire

I love teaching the book of Acts for many reasons!  This was a craft idea we used for Acts 2 - when the tongues of fire came upon the apostles.  It was so simple, fun, and effective!! Keys to any good craft project!  I used a sentence strip (which was really too big, so next time I will cut it in half) fit to each child's head.  Then, I gave them each a piece of red construction paper and a small part of yellow construction paper.  I let them design what they thought the tongues would have looked like.  We, then, glued the colors together and stapled them to the sentence strip.  The kids loved them and EVERYONE at church knew what we had studied about that night!

A Shepherd's Snack Sack

I don't know if I have put this up yet or not, but better twice than never!!! We used this simple (not that I made it, but I was told it was simple to make) sack to place our VBS snack in for the night we learned about David as a shepherd.  My friend, Kim, made them out of scrap brown fabric.  Sewed a casing (?) at the top to slide the rope through so we could tie it off.  She also sewed the sack up on two sides.  (Don't you LOVE my sewing instructions!)  Inside, we placed a snack size Zip-loc bag with a shepherd snack (trail mix).  We met at the river in our room to eat our snack.  The kids loved it and were able to take it home with them at the end of the night.

Creation Blocks

I did not make these, but have wanted to!!! So, when I saw them made, I took a picture of them to share with you because who knows when I will have them made!  One reason I love these is because you can do so many things with them!  Save the square boxes of Kleenexes and cover them with bulletin board paper.  Find numbers and pictures of the different things made on each day (as seen in the picture).  You can place one number on each box or 6 numbers on one box (one on each face).  Possibilities are numerous now!!!  If you use one number for each box, have your students place them in the correct order and review what was made on each day.  If you use one box for all 6 days, have each student roll the box and whatever number comes up have them tell you what was made on that day!